


Judge, Jury, and Jason Todd

by BlueSimba



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Red Hood: Lost Days, Under the Red Hood
Genre: F/M, Love, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reader-Insert, Romance, eventual bonding over lasagna
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 03:29:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10453962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueSimba/pseuds/BlueSimba
Summary: Jason always finds his way back here, back to Gotham.





	

Gotham has this stench that clings to it. 

Rats poke out of dingy alleyways and skitter around, disgustingly overgrown tails sweeping behind them. Graffiti is splayed out over Gotham; it suffocates the rundown diners that serve their customers with dirty plates instead of smiles, the motels with stiff beds that are less comfortable than the floors, and the old apartments where someone’s always moving in right after the last person left. Everything is fair game in Gotham, and there’s always some hotshot saying he owns the city because he scored on drug deal.

Except the upper side, that is. You know, the place where the houses hang over the beaches, and if you’re lucky enough there’ll be a photogenic sunset waiting for you. An ocean breeze will flutter by, tickling your nose just enough to make you forget that you’re in Gotham. The upper side doesn’t deal with the graffiti or gangs squabbling for power. Not publicly, that is. 

But make no mistake—they have their rats too. Their rats dress up in suits that cost more than a semester at Harvard. They’ll give charismatic speeches about how they’re going to clean up the city streets, about how they’re fully devoted to the city, and how the donations to their charities go to bettering students, Gotham’s future. Promises are made in speeches. Promises are swept under the rug immediately after. One thing’s for certain: the streets of Gotham still look the same as yesterday. 

Jason wrinkles his nose as he sits down, secluded by Gotham’s permanent shadows. Faint moonlight peeks above battered rooftops. Flickering signs from nearby businesses keep the alleyway somewhat lighted. Creeping up his spine like a spider, there’s a pang of fear that looms over him. The hairs on his arms are standing, he can feel it. A gulp. His heart’s beating faster, and his mind sprints in all directions. Heavy breathing. 

His wrists burn. Jason hisses, like his bones were just smashed _over and over_ again with a crowbar decorated in his blood. Scurrying through the alley, the rats make it worse, staring at him like he’s on display. Like he can’t move. That fuckin’ deranged grin is burned into his retinas.

Gotham has this stench that clings to it. Jason, unlike some people living in blissful ignorance, sees this city for what it really is—a shithole. If Bruce isn’t going to cross the line and wipe those pieces of shit from Gotham, then he will. 

 

Snow in Gotham is pure white at first, the kind that’d pop out of a fairy tale book. One minute it’s picture perfect snow, and then the next minute the snow is muddy, tinted with a repulsive brown. There’s dirty snow in places all over the world, Jason knows this. He’s seen it firsthand after waking up in the scorching Lazarus Pit. Alive, not dead. Not buried six feet beneath the ground in his best suit. He’ll always be able to recognize Gotham’s snow, no matter where (or maybe _when_ ) he is; for as much as he hates what’s happened here, this is where he grew up, where he made a name for himself. 

Jason remembers red snow and a German accent that’d get thicker with anger. 

After being warped by the Lazarus Pit, fueled by raw, unimaginable hatred, Jason realized that the world didn’t give a damn about the boy who left the world too early. The world kept going. So did Bruce. Talia, though, she understood him, understood his drive for vengeance. She made this possible with a fat bank account and setting him up with the best of the best—the teachers that wouldn’t care who you were if you had cash and wouldn’t mind staining your hands. 

Half of his teachers wound up dead for good reasons. He killed them because they didn’t deserve to share the same air as everyone else. The pedophile, the woman who was plotting to kill her husband and kid, the German assassin that sold drugged Chinese and Thai kids for an extra paycheck. Those types of people don’t get better if you throw them in Arkham and hope by some miracle that they don’t break out. Coffins hold them better than Arkham could dream of doing. 

As he finishes cleaning his prized guns in his apartment, he stares at the red mask next to him on the cheap sofa. This city shaped him, the kid who grew up scamming on the streets to get by, the street rat who’d become Robin, the teenager who glared at the face of cruelty and spit on it. Gotham made him what it needed most: someone who’d cross the line. Someone who wasn’t Batman. It needed a permanent fix to the rampant problems. And that answer came in the form of Jason Todd—Red Hood. 

Standing up, the couch springs groan in relief. Jason stretches and tries to free his neck and arms from the tense knots that refuse to let go, digging their claws into his muscles. He grabs his guns, calloused fingers wrapping around familiar handles, and puts them away, stashing them all over the apartment in case of emergency. When he has his guns in hand or nearby, there’s a sense of security that tumbles around in him. Holding enough firepower to make anyone back off, the apartment has enough weapons to fill a military arsenal.

Sluggishly walking to his bedroom, his footsteps are heavy, solid. 

It’s 3:40 in the morning by the time Jason collapses on his stiff bed. Click, click, click the ceiling fan rattles. Burned into the back of his brain, he counts that click, clinging to it knowing he won’t be able to sleep. Sleep doesn’t come easy to him anymore. At most he gets a couple hours. Even then he bolts up multiple times with streams of sweat sliding down the sides of his face. There’s something wrong with him and he knows it, but this is his normal now and he’ll deal with it how he wants to. 

Tossing and turning for hours, he finally sinks into a restless sleep, with his face twitching and scrunching all the while. 

Again.

Again.

Again, he launches upwards. Chains of sweat trickling down his face are back. The heavy breathing is too. One, two, one, two. Jason’s eyes are wide, irises almost shaking. He can’t think. Can’t scrape his way out of the nightmares that haunt him. They cling to him more than Gotham’s stench suffocates it.

His hand immediately flies to the gun stashed beneath his pillow, fingers curling around it in a death grip, enough pressure to cut off someone’s breathing. 

_“So, let’s try and clear this up, okay, pumpkin? What hurts more? A—”_

_Bones shatter as he’s clobbered with a crowbar._

_“—or B?”_

_A series of grunts._

_“Forehand—”_

_The crowbar digs into his flesh, tearing at him. He’s gurgling on his own blood._

_“—or backhand?”_

_His blood tastes like iron._

Jason hears that psychotic cackling in his head. It rings out nonstop, and one of his hands is pulling at his black hair. It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real. He can’t be hurt like that anymore. He refuses it—refuses to be vulnerable. 

 

Rusting ships sit in the shipyard, caressed by the sea’s fingers, and the ships loom over everything in sight. Dull colored crates with black numbers sprayed on them don’t compare to the massive ships that feel like they were at the forefront of an armada. 

Hawkish and focused, Jason’s eyes are fixed on a nearby section of the shipyard. Some mildly important people are going to be meeting here tonight, according to his source that vomited up information to save his own skin. 

He waits. There’s movement in the corner of his eye, something small, something fast. Tiny legs skittering across cracked concrete sound. Craning his neck and squinting, his eyes are locked on it instantly. His fingers reflexively twitch, and he has to resist the roaring urge to reach for one of the numerous guns he’s got and put a bullet right through the center of whatever is crawling around. 

It’s a roach, an ugly version of brown, antenna poking up, and unfortunately, not lying on its back, dead. 

Averting his gaze, Jason looks back to the spot from earlier. To take over a big hellhole like Gotham, he’s going to have to play it smart and provoke everyone just enough so that they move right where he wants them. That’s how things are done here. That’s how things have always been done here; it hasn’t changed since he was Robin. Guns blazing and ordering glasses of towering demands comes later. That’s the fun part, when his heart is rushing blood to every corner of his body and he can barely hear over the stampeding adrenaline in his ears—but for now he’s got to wait, patiently perched in permanent shadows. 

More roaches come within twenty minutes. They’re in moderately nice suits (hell, one of them has a cigar in his mouth, saying he’s some kind of bigshot) and carrying black briefcases of cash that blend in well with the dim surroundings. What really matters here are the people. The cash is a bonus for him. 

To have friends in high places and provoke the important guys just so, you’ve got to be standing on someone else’s back already, like these guys here. 

The smell of salt from the water is light as his muscles strain in anticipation. He doesn’t hear the soft skittering roach as adrenaline electrifies his body. Fingers twitching again, he’s reaching for his guns, gloved fingers coiling around familiar handles. 

He steps out of the shadows.

Footsteps dauntingly chilling; guns out, pointed at foreheads; and a sliver of moonlight shining on his red hood. 

Jason’s met with furious expressions coupled with harsh, biting storms of swearing. They’re reaching for anything they’ve got to defend themselves, knives, guns, you name it. Regardless of whatever miracle they’re hoping to rip from their asses, they’re too slow. Footsteps shuffle over the concrete as some of them try to run with their tails between their legs. 

Shoot first, ask questions later. 

Fingers rapidly pulling triggers, bodies plummet to the ground, legs crippling at unnatural angles. Several jaws hit the concrete hard. Cracking nastily on impact, stained, yellow teeth burst from mouths. Teeth launch in every direction and are followed by endless streams of blood that leak from the buckled mouths. Agonized shrieks shred out of dry throats. A silent wave passes over.

The moderately important people are left unscathed for now. He needs them unscathed physically, but mentally is a completely different story. 

“So,” Jason says and focuses on the remaining people, “let’s talk.”


End file.
